This invention relates to a device or system for use in medical diagnoses and treatment. The device or system is especially useful for medical imaging purposes to enable a visual inspection of internal tissue structures.
In recent years, the escalation of medical costs has captured substantial media and regulatory attention. One reason for the escalating costs is the ever increasing use of expensive machines and testing techniques. Computed assisted tomography (CAT scanning), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and some radiological techniques have been in the forefront of contributing to mounting medical costs. In addition to being expensive, these devices are heavy and bulky, making them ill suited to transport.
In this age of rapidly escalating medical costs, minimally invasive operations have become the method of choice for diagnosis and treatment. In many cases, endoscopic, laparoscopic and radiographic techniques have superseded older diagnostic and therapeutic surgical techniques.
Ultrasonic imaging tools are not uncommon in medical offices. These existing devices invariably include a probe provided at a distal or free end with an ultrasonic transducer. The operator moves the probe over a skin surface of a patient while viewing images generated on a video monitor. Upon detecting an image containing information of interest, the operator presses a button to record the image.
The images produced during a conventional ultrasonic scanning procedure are not easily decipherable. Even physicians intimately familiar with internal tissue structures of human beings find it difficult to read conventional ultrasonically generated images without substantial training.
Conventional ultrasound images are two-dimensional (2D) and represent a cross-sectional cut or plane through internal tissues. The data needed for these 2D images are acquired electronically using the probe. The probe scans electronically in a single lateral or length dimension to scan a beam and hence is referred to as a one-dimensional (1D) transducer array; and the second dimension in a 2D image is the range or depth dimension (i.e. into the body). Interest in three-dimensional (3D) ultrasound imaging is increasing rapidly, notwithstanding the fact that presently, it is not possible to obtain electronic 3D volumetric data acquisition. Electronic 3D volumetric data acquisition requires a probe that can electronically scan in a width dimension as well as a length dimension (i.e. the probe must incorporate a 2D transducer array). Such probes are not currently available, and are not expected to be in the near future due to multiplicative complexities known to those skilled in the art in implementing a 2D transducer array, However, 1.5D transducer arrays are available. These arrays scan only in one dimension (i.e. the length dimension) as the 1D transducer arrays; however, they include a few additional rows of transducer elements in the width dimension giving the appearance of a rectangular 2D array. The purpose of the few additional rows (where each row is effectively a 1D array consisting typically of approximately 100 transducer elements) of elements is to provide better focus in the width dimension as a function of depth.